I'm sorry, but it's a copout as suggested below, that just because Santo's in Boston he doesn't have access to talented actors or screenwriters. I'm sorry I don't buy that for a second. Writing a script and casting actor's really doesn't cost much at all. you don't need to be in Hollywood to get good performers delivering good material...
I finally saw, endured is more like it, all 3 volumes of Jason Santo's series Bent. On the positive side Santo shows some glimpses of talent w/ his camera work. However, the entire series is marred by very poor acting, (it's clear he's using strictly friends and family, not a trained actor in sight.) And with the exception of Marisa every other film (9 to be exact) was way too long, in some cases like His Life and The Haunting and A Sky w/ No Angels even The Aftermath, Santo could have lost 10 minutes on each film easily. There was a lot of redundancy and by the 3rd volume I had my finger on the FF button on every film. The 3rd volume started off great, some fantastic helicopter shots and the look and camera work on the first film Aftermath was just awesome. However, the sound was uneven, and once again hampered w/ poor acting and was way way too long. Here Comes Your Man faired a little better, the editing style was interesting, but once again too long. Also, the story was a bit lame, it's not very often someone w/ HIV develops full blown AIDS that quickly let alone Caposi Sarcoma. In dealing w/ such a serious subject Santo should have done more homework. I've been reading all over the net some very positive reviews of this series so for a moment I thought it just might be me. But, I spent last weekend at The NewPort Beach Film festival and saw a program of shorts and even tho none of them were stellar all were better than the best film in the Bent series. All had professional actors, several recognizable from films and TV, all the films were shot on 35 and 24p, sound was consistently good, and although most were a bit longer than necessary, were fairly engaging. This brought me back to the countless film fest programs I've been to, and even tho there's a lot of crap, thinking back, most shorts I've seen in fests were better than what was offered up here. To wrap it up I can't say it any better than Barry Meyer in film monthly who wrote of this series, "Santo seems so wrapped up in the idea of being a filmmaker, and all the fun stuff that it entails, that he never gets around to talking about the passion involved in telling a good story. And good film-making is good storytelling......I also took into account that the DVD is out on the consumer market, so if he's asking film fans to support his pleasures, then he'll need to get more serious and do some serious work on putting out more worthy products."
